peanutbutter and celery

So I was thinking about the celery in our fridge, and when I should eat it.

Should I put it in soup?  Yes, of course
Should I put it in a casserole?  Yes, of course

But for snacking, I should definitely fill it with peanutbutter!

Then I was thinking how messy that would be.
Then I was struck with an idea!  What if I slightly melted the peanutbutter, just to where it is softer, then filled a disposable icing bag with it!  Of course this seems like more effort than needed for just snacking (I can always just dip the celery into the pb), but this would be perfect for all those family events!  I know someone else has probably thought of this, but I did too!  Yay me!  Finally, I have something that came to mind, rather than seeing it and thinking (how did I not think of that?!).  Yay!

Okay that was all :)

Yay for motivation

I am determined to fit into these two dresses that are hanging in my closet.

I bought them about 3 months before I found out I was pregnant, but it was winter, so I only got to wear each once.  I really want to wear them again.  Plus, now that we are in Chicago, we live near a beach!  I sooooo want to go to the beach a bunch this Spring and Summer. 

I don't know if my suit from last year will still fit, but if it doesn't, I hope to fit into my old pre-pregnancy suits.  I don't want to spend a bunch of money on a new one, unless I have to.

So I keep starting, then stopping, then starting and stopping again!  (<---- with workouts)

I started again this week.  My legs are on fired, and my arms hate me.  But today will be day 4 of me working out, and sticking to it.  I have also found a free weekly workout that is held at a church near me.  Once a week they offer 1 hour of intense workouts for all levels.  I couldn't go this week, because Joshua had meetings until afterwards, but I will go next week!  

I have been being good when it comes to eating too.  I still refuse to cut out things that I love, because that just seems silly to me.  But I am putting in more of things I enjoy, but don't crave.  For instance, today I would have loved to have the bean and cheese gas station burrito in our deep freeze, or the Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs, for lunch.  Instead I had some whole grain crackers with peanutbutter, and a sliced cucumber with a little garlic salt.  Still something I like, though not what I craved.  Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps... I keep telling myself that.

Working out would be so much easier if you could see the results as you go.  But since they are under your skin, it takes weeks!  *sigh* But I am hoping to stick to it this time. 

Yesterday I almost didn't work out.  I didn't want to.  I told myself it was okay to take a day off.

But then... excuse the language about to follow... I told myself "fuck that, get your ass up or you will regret it tomorrow!" Then I worked out, then I e-mailed Joshua to let him know how proud of myself I was, because I kicked my own ass for being lazy. 

As most could probably guess, I use Pinterest a lot for finding recipes, workout routines, tips, or just motivational reminders.

Here are my Pinterest boards for working out & recipes.

These are some of my favorite things that I have found to really motivate me

Then there is this one... which I don't just apply to working out. 

When I see this one... it always makes me smile.  The words sound kind of funny to me.  Because of course I am not.  But really... the statement makes sense.  So many people put down their roots and don't want to change.  Or act as if they can't.  But they can.  If they really want to.

So this is my favorite :) 

<3

No I am not a tree.

Turkey

We try to eat healthy when we can.  One of the many things we have done to add a dash of "better for you" into our meals, is replacing a lot of ground beef, with ground turkey.

My favorite would be the turkey tacos.  They do not taste any different!  They are delicious!  Another thing for taco night, to cut out a million more calories, and fat, from my meal, is to replace the sour cream with plain non-fat greek yogurt.  It tastes a little different, but with all the taco seasoning (which I make at home, it is really, really easy!) you really don't notice it.  I love my sour cream, even with french fries, or chips, so I promise, I am not lying about the yogurt on the tacos.

Turkey Tacos: (sorry I don't have pics, but turkey night isn't until next week)

1 lb ground turkey

1 tbl chili powder
.5 tsp paprika
.5 tsp garlic powder
.5 tsp onion powder
.25 tsp crushed red pepper
.25 tsp oregano
1.5 tsp cumin (When I open this up, Joshua and I both exclaim that this is where tacos come from)
1 tsp sea salt (We use sea salt, you can use whatever.  I have tried garlic salt, it wasn't bad)
a dash of black pepper (or more to taste)

Shells, or tortillas, or bowls (whatever you want!  Sometimes we just have taco salad, with cool ranch Doritos.  Well Joshua does, I don't like Doritos, so I use tortilla chips)

Combine the seasonings in a small bowl.  Cook the turkey in a skillet, or wide shallow pan, until completely cooked.  I do it over a med-high heat.  Then add in the seasoning mixture.  I don't usually drain anything, because there isn't much to drain, and when I add in the seasoning mixture, it soaks it up, while it flavors the turkey.  Sometimes you might need to add a little water to the pan, if the seasoning is too thick on the meat.  Sometimes I have had to do this, and sometimes I have not.  I have not changed anything that I am aware of.

Fill up your ______ (<--- insert bowl, shell, tortilla, etc) and enjoy!

Some toppings I enjoy are refried beans, black olives, plain non-fat, greek yogurt, Ortega taco sauce (mild), Mexican blend shredded cheese, and recently I tried avocado.  :)




Another one of our favorites, turkey spaghetti!  The same concept applies.  You just replace the ground beef, with ground turkey.

Last night however, I tried something new.

I tried turkey meatballs!  They were a big success!
I used a recipe I found on Pinterest.  The actual recipe is gluten free, and calls for a couple gluten free ingredients.  I wish I could have made them how they were intended, but I didn't have everything, and it was too cold to venture out yesterday.

This image is from the blog Because of Madalene, which is also where the recipe is from.  In case anyone wanted to try the gluten free recipe.

Here is what I made (sorry again, no pictures, we just ate it too fast, and dinner was after 8 last night because of meetings at Joshua's new job).

Turkey Meatballs

preheat the oven to 350

1 lb ground turkey (make sure it is thawed, if you are like me and freeze most of your meat)
1 slice of wheat bread (cut into small cubes, about half an inch)
2-3 tbsp 2% milk (depending on your size bread, ours took 3)
1.5 tsp garlic powder
.5 tsp garlic salt
1 small handful of shredded cheese (we used asiago, but I think any that you prefer would be fine)
1/4 C. Italian bread crumbs
dried oregano
dried basil
ground black pepper
extra virgin olive oil

(for the oregano, basil, and pepper, I let Evelyn help, so we did not follow a precise measurement, just a few shakes of each)

Take your bread cubes, and put them in a small bowl.  Add the milk to it, and let it absorb.  If you need more milk, add more, but you basically want the bread to be swollen with all of the milk, so it starts to fall apart.  But not too much milk, or it will just be swimming.  Let it sit about 4-5 minutes.

While it is sitting, gather all of your other ingredients into a med-large mixing bowl.
Don't mix them until you add the soaked bread cubes.
Then just use your hands, and blend the mixture until it is well incorporated.  Madalene instructed on her blog, that you wouldn't want to over mix, or you would get tough meatballs.  So I tried to be focused on blending, but not overly mixing.

When your mixture is complete, heat some EVOO in a skillet, or shallow, wide pan.  I used enough to coat the bottom of mine, and heated it under medium-high heat for about 1 minutes.  Then I started rounding the meat, into little balls (I made mine about an inch and a half big).  I covered the pan with them.  I cooked  the bottom side for about 2 minutes, then I flipped to the other side for another 2 minutes.

While they are cooking in the pan, prepare your cookie sheet.  I usually put foil on top, for easy clean up.  When they are done on both sides (the other sides of them will start cooking because of all the other meatballs in the pan heating them), scoop them up (with a spoon, not your hand!) and put them on the cookie sheet.  Then pop them in the oven for about 8-12 minutes (depending on how hot your oven gets, or how big your meatballs turned out to be).

While they were cooking, I made my spaghetti.

When they were done, I put them on a plate with paper towel, to cool off a little.  While they were cooling, garlic bread went into the oven for about 10 minutes.

Everything came together, and was ready at the perfect time :) just 2 minutes after Joshua walked in the door, yay!  Then we stuffed our faces until I couldn't move.  Evelyn had 4, seriously, 4 meatballs all of her own.  On top of her dinner.  So I would say this was a good meal, and we will make it again.

It was so easy!


I love it when it becomes easy to be at least a little healthier :)

Oh my gosh!

So sorry I keep leaving you alone, oh blog of mine.

We have been having a rough couple months!  But hopefully this just means really great things are happening!  Oh wait, they are!  Well they are starting to.

Our Indiegogo donation site finished!  The total raised was $610 dollars, which has helped!  We paid off some money on our care credit card (which is for vet care) so now we can go in and make another payment!  yay!  Still quite a few payments to go, but it should all be great :) We can't thank those who contributed enough, and we have things to send out this week (finally! after many mishaps, and injuries, and burnt cookies, or cookies that didn't hold shape, etc, we are finally ready to send things out!)

Joshua had interviews over the last couple weeks, and during his second round of interviews, he was hired and asked to start the next day!  Which was yesterday!  He has to wear a suit, which makes him look so damn good, and he also has to shave... which is kind of weird for me, but I think he looks great with or without his beard :) He is taking time off from school so he can work full time until we catch up on bills, but he has plans to go back next year!  I am so proud of him.

Evelyn has started walking, yay! She is too funny.  I love her personality.  She doesn't want to watch tv, just listen to theme songs at the start of my shows (The Office, and That 70's Show are her current favorites), and otherwise she just wants to read.  She was really sick for the first time since she was born (she had jaundice when she was born, and has been pretty much healthy since then, other than a small cold here or there), which sucked, but she only has today and tomorrow of antibiotics left!  Poor girl had a double ear infection, and a virus on top of that.  She seems to be in good spirits though :)

This is today...

I looked away for one second...

She thinks she is funny.  I happen to agree, so it all works out okay :) 

I finally got to get groceries yesterday!  I was so excited!  Our grocery store has online deals that we can add to our rewards card, so I spent an hour and a half, to two hours yesterday making my shopping list.  Checking their in store specials, against coupons, and deal matches.  It took forever, but I got it done!  I have made a couple really nice friends up in Chicago since we moved.  One of them volunteered to watch Evee yesterday so I could shop with sanity haha.  She also happens to be the one who lets us use her car if we need it.  Which is amazing!  So thank you again, you wonderful person!  

So I spent last night making a few crock pot freezer meals, and bags of cleaned, cut up fruit for smoothies, or snacking.  Now that Joshua has a job, I get to make him lunches to save us money!  Yay!

For the crockpot freezer bags, I have Italian mushroom chicken, spicy bbq, creamy with a kick chicken and potatoes (potatoes to be added at time of cooking), and citrus fiesta chicken.  I will post more about them when I make them, so I can have pictures to go with!

Sadly I have to go back to the store soon, or call them tonight when Joshua gets home.  I went over my coupons, and the receipt, and some of them just don't match what they should have been.  Sad panda!

I haven't really gotten to play any games for a little while, but I did build a house in Sims 3. 

My WoW membership expires in 3 days, and we aren't renewing it until we have some expendable money saved up.  I did get a really amazing deal with Comcast though!  I called to cancel our internet, as it was about to go from 29.99 to 60 something.  They tried to talk me into having the same package for 44.99.  I told them we couldn't do more than what we currently paid.  After trying to talk me into it a couple more times (which is kinda silly if I have already said "we can't afford that") she offered me the same package for 19.99 a month, for 6 months, and then it would go to 34.99 for 6 months.  I told her sure :) I am all about getting what we already have, for 10 bucks cheaper!!! Yay haggling!  

Today I plan on putting the two bags of spinach I got, into the food processor, so I can freeze them in ice cube trays and use them for my smoothies!  I saw it on Pinterest, so it must be awesome, right?  right? 

Okay, well Evelyn is napping, and I am exhausted, because guess what, now I am sick :( 

Or at least starting to get that way.  Lame.  

Bye!